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Thursday, January 27, 2011

After declaring for some time that e-mail, a website and three blogs are sufficient presence on the Internet, I have caved in and joined Twitter, in part inspired by how it is being used by the people of Tunisia, Egypt and China to gain their freedom.

Twitter contact for Michael Hoffman:

@HoffmanMichaelA

If you don’t know how to use Twitter, learn more at http://twitter.com/

Hoffman analyzes the thoughtless acceptance of the Newspeak "Holocaust denial" phrase as a universal description of dissenters who dare to question Allied and Zionist dogma. He points to the hypocrisy of approved "holocaust denial " by Zionist professors who deny the 1945 Allied holocaust in Dresden, Germany or the Israeli genocide in Gaza — "denials" which are not a subject of academic controversy or media reproach and do not threaten the university employment or credentials of the deniers.

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Revisionist historian Michael Hoffman's work is supported solely by donations and the sale of his books, newsletters and broadcasts

When did separation of church and state become a slogan rather than a core element of the American way of life? When did a cross become an ecumenical symbol that is appropriate for military memorials on federal property?

Regrettably, these questions remain unanswered — and our courts have not provided much in the way of clarity. This pattern continues with the federal appeals court ruling earlier this month regarding the cross on San Diego’s Mount Soledad.

The involvement of the Jewish War Veterans (JWV) as a plaintiff in the Mount Soledad case is part of our ongoing fight for the rights of Jewish service members and veterans and on behalf of the values enshrined in the Constitution.

Back in 1986, JWV filed suit to remove or relocate a brightly lit, 65-foot-high memorial cross at Camp H.L. Smith, a Marine Corps base in Hawaii. In 1988, a federal district court decided in favor of JWV, ruling that the cross violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The federal government did not appeal this definitive decision. Yet in the years that have followed, this decision has been largely sidestepped.

Take, for example, last year’s Supreme Court ruling regarding a cross in California’s Mojave National Preserve. JWV filed an amicus brief in that case, which involved an 8-foot-tall cross honoring American service members who died in World War I. In response to a federal district court ruling that the cross violated the Establishment Clause, Congress had transferred the plot of land to a local veterans’ group. Federal courts, however, rejected this end-run around the ruling. The federal government appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which in a 5-4 decision overruled the lower court’s decision against the land swap without taking a position on the larger constitutional issue. It sent the case back to the lower courts to sort out.

The January 4 ruling in the Mount Soledad case similarly failed to produce a clear-cut outcome.
The battle over the Mount Soledad cross has been raging for two decades. The 29-foot-tall cross was erected in 1954 and sits atop a peak in a public park. It was dedicated on Easter, and the spot had long been used for Easter services. Once the cross started drawing challenges in court during the late 1980s, its defenders began stressing that the cross was actually a memorial for all veterans.

California state courts had held that the cross represented an impermissible blending of religion and state. So the cross’s supporters had the property turned over to the federal government. JWV filed suit, demanding the cross’s removal or relocation.

After losing before a district court, we appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the present arrangement is unconstitutional. But the appeals court added some weasel-wording in referring the case back to the lower court: “This result does not mean that the Memorial could not be modified to pass Constitutional muster nor does it mean that no cross can be part of this veterans’ memorial. We take no position on those issues.”

So, once again, instead of resolving the issue, we end up with a vague and indecisive referral back to the lower courts. This is how the status quo has persisted for so long, with the First Amendment sacrificed to apathy, indecision and — yes — fear.

On the battlefield, we do not serve as members of one religious group or another. We fight, we die, we suffer injuries — and we do so as members of America’s armed forces.

At a military cemetery, each veteran may have a headstone reflecting his or her individual religious preference, and that is as it should be. But veterans, and those who gave their lives for this country, should not have another religion’s symbol foisted upon them. That is not the way to honor them.

This has not been an easy fight for Jewish veterans. The responses we have been getting since the Mount Soledad decision range from those asking why we are making such a fuss to accusations that we are anti-Christian. Even among Jewish veterans, there are those who worry we are disturbing their relationships with other veterans and veterans’ organizations.

Indeed, sometimes it might seem easier to avoid trouble. Just like you can try to avoid accusations of dual loyalty by keeping quiet about your Jewish identity. And you can choose to passively accept proselytizing in our military academies. But ducking this issue would be an abrogation of our duties, not only to Jewish veterans and service members, but also to our Constitution.

Robert Zweiman is a past national commander of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America and a current member of its national executive committee.

In Defense of Robert E. Lee in Response to the PBS "American Experience" TV Documentary

Michael Hoffman appears on the Jeff Rense radio program to refute several vicious myths and libels which the PBS television series spread on Jan. 3, 2011 in a national broadcast subtly denigrating Robert E. Lee (Jan. 19, 1807-Oct. 12, 1870), America's beloved Christian Confederate general, statesman and educator.

The PBS documentary was titled, "Robert E. Lee: At War with His Country and Himself." One sees the bias even in the title. Lee believed that Virginia was his country and he was certainly not at war with Virginia. The PBS documentary is being shown in schools throughout America.

Hoffman analyzes the bias within this sophisticated and clever "public television" propaganda and refutes every one of its falsehoods, in the course of a conversation with nationally renowned radio host Jeff Rense. Approximately 40 minutes.

Michael Hoffman is a historian of American labor and the author of They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold Story of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America.

One of the most banned English Bibles in western history is now back in print!

"Every corner of England was searched for those books (Rheims New Testament) — the ports were laid for them, Paul's Cross is witness of burning many of them, the Prince's proclamation was procured against them; in the universities by sovereign authority colleges, chambers, studies, closets, coffers and desks were ransacked for them." — Alice Hogge, "God's Secret Agents"

Independent History and Research is pleased to announce the first facsimile reprint of the 1633 edition of the Rheims New Testament (the edition most faithful to the original 1582 manuscript) in nearly 400 years.

The Rheims was the first English Catholic version, translated from the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome by the fugitive Oxford University linguist Rev. Fr. Gregory Martin, with extensive notes by the fugitive Oxford Bible scholar Rev. Fr. Richard Bristow, and first published in 1582. It was one of the most hunted and banned books in all of Elizabethan England.

About the year 1583, Sir Francis Walsingham, head of the dreaded and occult-steeped British Secret Service, ordered the seizure of the Rheims. Persons in England found with it were imprisoned. Torture was applied to those Englishmen who sold or otherwise circulated it.

The Anglican theologian Thomas Cartwright was assigned the task of refuting it. His work was commissioned and financed by the Secret Service itself.

This is a tale of double intrigue: the Rheims New Testament was outlawed by Protestant Queen Elizabeth I and suppressed by Rome, which saw to it that a "Bishop Challoner" simulacra was deceptively substituted.

Historian Michael Hoffman observes: "Challoner's Bible is falsely denominated by liberal, conservative and traditional Catholics as 'the Douay-Rheims,' thereby conveying the misapprehension that the authentic Douay-Rheims is freely available and everywhere in print. But the seeker cannot find that which he does not know is lost. There is something fantastically shrewd and designing in suppressing a Bible translation by pretending it is still in print."

In other words, today's so-called "Haydock" and "Challoner Douay-Rheims" Bibles are counterfeits. A few churchmen raised the alarm concerning this swindle. In 1837 Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman wrote, "To call it any longer the Douay or Rheimish Version is an abuse of terms. It has been altered and modified until scarcely any sense remains as it was originally published."

Our Rheims New Testament is a hardcover facsimile printing of the final, authentic edition published in 1633. It includes an introductory, eight-page essay by Hoffman, "History of the Suppressed, Original Douay-Rheims Bible."

The owner of this Rheims New Testament will have to learn to read 16th century typography and spelling, wherein the letter "s" resembles the letter "f" (e-mail us for a pdf file of a sample page; see below for details). This is true of any book from that time period. The spelling in the Rheims New Testament is eccentric even by Elizabethan standards (one among many examples: the word devil is spelled "dieul"). Effort is required to comprehend this antiquarian Renaissance English text, but such effort will repay the dedicated reader many times over.

It is not only Gregory Martin's translation that is worth the effort. Richard Bristow's learned, copious and frankly incendiary "annotations," which convey a treasure-trove of Counter-Reformation polemics, apologia, theology and philosophy, is worth the investment. Fr. Bristow's scholarship was a source of grave concern to Queen Elizabeth, who condemned his writings by name in her royal proclamation of October, 1584, "for the suppressing of seditious books."

The sample Rheims page which we offer in a pdf file (to receive it, e-mail: rarebooks14@me.com with the subject line "Rheims sample page”), is from Matthew 27:46-66. You will note that the Gospel text is printed larger than the annotations (this is also true of book and chapter introductions), which are always printed in the smaller type, which you will see at the bottom of the page. The pdf file sample, available by e-mail, affords you the opportunity to gauge your ability to work at comprehending the text. All sales are final, so be certain to review the sample page carefully before considering a purchase.

The Zionists are desperate not to have Loughner labeled as being of Judaic descent:

Reporter Ron Kampeas asked researcher Nate Bloom about this, in a column for the Jewish Telegraph Agency (Jan. 12, 2011). Bloom states flat out: "Loughner’s family was in no way Jewish, nor was his mother...”

There you have it. The “expert” Nate Bloom has declared the belief we must all accept — but...

A bit down in his paragraph, Bloom concedes that even though Loughner’s mother is "in no way Jewish," lo and behold, she is a little (but not too much):

“ — but she might have mentioned her Jewish grandfather, beloved enough to live on in her brother's name, with pride or interest.

"Under those circumstances Loughner, who sought ‘chaos' according to Tierney, might have sought to provoke his mother and his uncle by pretending to admire (or actually admiring) Adolph (sic) Hitler. He might have told Tierney that his mother was Jewish as a shorthand, or might have seen her as Jewish...Or he might have explained the lineage, and Tierney might understandably have conflated it as 'mother Jewish.” (End quote; emphasis supplied).

I noted the other day that an acquaintance of Jared Lee Loughner, the accused gunman in Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Tucson, believed his mother was Jewish.

Bryce Tierney told Mother Jones that Loughner listed Mein Kampf as a favorite book in part to provoke his Jewish mother.

Nate Bloom, the noted Jewish roots columnist and researcher, has done the legwork -- and pretty much buries this notion.

I'll hand it over to him:

It is appalling how one comment---a friend of Jared Loughner telling a Mother Jones’ reporter that Jared Loughner’s mother is “Jewish”---goes viral in an instant. In hours, "this fact" was all over on anti-Semitic sites. And, of course, there are the “commentators” who love to ‘blame the victim’ via some pop psychology theory that Jared acted out of “Jewish self-hatred.”

I figured that this was the moment to try and get “truth” dressed, and into the public arena a lot faster than usual. In other words, to use the tools of the internet to determine the veracity of what this friend told Mother Jones.

I cover Jews in popular culture for Jewish newspapers and I know how often famous people are mis-identified as Jewish or mis-identified as not Jewish. I also know that a lot of people are not outright lying about claiming someone is Jewish---they just get it wrong.

So, with my friend Michael, we ran down everything we could from public records on Jared Loughner’s mother’s family background. It took a lot of “search terms” and databases to find what we did.

Here’s what we found:

Jared Lee Loughner’s mother is Amy Totman Loughner;

Amy Loughner---Known Parentage from Public Records:

Her [Amy’s] parents were Lois May Totman and Laurence Edward Totman.
----Lois M. Totman died in 1999 and Laurence E. Totman died in 2005. Both were registered nurses. Laurence worked at a VA facility in Tucson. We both found this info via google news archives, social security death index.

From 1930 census records:
Laurence E. Totman was born in Illinois in 1925.
His (Laurence’s) parents were Laurence A. Totman and his wife, Mary.
Laurence Totman pere (the elder) was born in Kansas to a Pennsylvania father and an Illinois mother. Mary was from Illinois, as were both of her parents.
A sister-in-law named Myrtle M. Brennan is listed as living with them also.

1920/1910 census records---Totman Family:
In 1920, Lawrence Totman, (Jared’s) great-grandfather, is living with his aunt, Rosa Clarke, who was born in illinois to two Irish-born parents.
Rosa is his mother's sister. On the 1910 census, his (Laurence, the elder) maternal grandparents are listed as Irish-born.
Father, Orvie Totman was born in Ohio to Ohio-born parents.

Amy Loughner’s Mother’s Line:

See obit, below, from Arlington (Illinois) Daily Record, June 24, 1999---Obituary of Helen Medernach of Virgil, Illinois. Helen was the sister of Lois M. Totman (the mother of Amy Totman Loughner). Helen was the great aunt of Jared Loughner.

As you can see, Helen’s funeral (mass) was held at a Catholic church. Helen (and Lois) were the children of Anton Bleifuss and Jessie Bleifuss (nee Anderson). Lois M. Totman died just days after her sister, Helen.

According to the census records, Anton Bleifuss was born in Bremen, Germany, to German parents. Jessie Anderson Bleifuss was born in Illinois to a father born in Denmark and a mother born in Illinois.
Conclusion---It is exceedingly unlikely that Amy Loughner has any Jewish ancestry. The only “line” not traced his Amy’s father’s mother’s family. The other three lines (Amy’s father’s father, Amy’s mother’s father, and Amy’s mother mother)---show, to all but the most obtuse, that these were/are not Jewish families. Moreover, it is quite clear that Amy’s mother, Lois Bleifuss Trotman, came from a Catholic family.

At OpEd News, Rob Kall interviews Rabbi Stephanie Aaron of Giffords' shul, Congregation Chaverim, she dispenses with any notion that the Loughner's were in any way associated with the community:
"We had a meeting of the Tucson Board of Rabbis. We all looked at our rosters from many years back. No one has ever heard of the family -- him, his parents, any of them. I can say with absolute certainty that we do not know him in pretty much the entire affiliated community.”

I would add this: Bleifuss may be a Jewish name. (The noted investigative journalist, Joel Bleifuss, is Jewish.) Anton Bleifuss, Jared Lee Loughner's great-grandfather, might then have been Jewish -- but not so committed that he didn't defer to his wife when it came to raising the children as Roman Catholics.
As I noted in my earlier posting, Jared Loughner is not the most reliable of reporters, and Tierney's recollection was added as an aside. Mix into this the fact that Amy Loughner's brother is Anton Totman -- apparently named for his mother's father.

Loughner's family was in no way Jewish, nor was his mother -- but she might have mentioned her Jewish grandfather, beloved enough to live on in her brother's name, with pride or interest. Under those circumstances Loughner, who sought "chaos" according to Tierney, might have sought to provoke his mother and his uncle by pretending to admire (or actually admiring) Adolph Hitler. He might have told Tierney that his mother was Jewish as a shorthand, or might have seen her as Jewish -- like I said, not the most reliable reporter. Or he might have explained the lineage, and Tierney might understandably have conflated it as "mother Jewish.”

It sets up a fascinating contrast: Gabrielle Giffords, who plunges into public service when she is 30, just the same age she delves into her father's Judaism and chooses to embrace it; and Jared Loughner, who learns of a distant Jewish connection deep in his family's past -- and reviles it as he retreats into madness.
An obituary for Loughman's great aunt, Helen Medernach, is after the jump.

A funeral Mass for Helen Medernach, 77, will be held at 10:30 a.m. Friday, at S.S. Peter & Paul Church. Fr. Aloysius Neumann will officiate.

Born Sept. 21, 1921, in Sycamore, the daughter of Anton and Jessie (nee Anderson) Bleifuss, she passed away peacefully Sunday, June 20, 1999, at Bethany Care Center in Sycamore, where she had made her home since May. Interment will be in S.S. Peter and Paul Cemetery, Virgil.

Helen grew up in Sycamore and graduated from Sycamore High School, class of 1939. She went on to take business courses which shortly landed her a job at Anaconda Wire Company in Sycamore. She went to California with her sister, Lois, and was employed in a business office for a few years before returning to work in Chicago. The last 20 years of her working career were spent in the business office at the Duplex Company in Sycamore.

She was united in marriage to William H. `Willie' Medernach on May 16, 1959.
They made their home in Sycamore for a short time before moving to Virgil where they lived across the street from the church for many years.

Survivors include her sisters, Virginia Stran of DeKalb, Irene Luty of Covina, Calif., Lois (Lawrence) Totman of Tucson, Ariz. and Dorothy (`Trig') Troeger of Sycamore; several nieces and nephews; and a family of dear friends. In addition, she leaves the quiet, simple legacy of one who cared. Her many thoughtful words of thanks, encouragement and friendship were patiently penned into countless cards that found their way into the hearts of many friends and neighbors through the years.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband in 1997; and brothers, Albert, Lyle, Leslie and Donald Bleifuss.

Monday, January 10, 2011

American society is coming apart at the seams and Loughner would appear to be one of the decay organisms. President Bill Clinton carpet-bombed Serbia with NATO's help and then the Columbine High School attacks happened in Colorado. For decades the US and "Israel" have been assassinating whoever has stood in their way. The Phoenix Program in Vietnam assassinated upwards of 20,000 persons. We rule by assassination and it is no surprise that "assassination chic" is back again on the American national scene. By Michael Hoffman | www.revisionisthistory.org

Coinicidence or conspiracy? That's the question independent sleuths are asking themselves in the aftermath of the Tucson shootings that killed Federal Judge John Roll and seriously wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The alleged perpetrator, Jared Lee Loughner, has been made to fit the familiar "lone nut" profile, complete with the requisite three names (as in John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, Mark David Chapman). One of his other victims was a nine-year-old girl born on Sept. 11, 2001. Rep. Giffords attended a liberal "Reform" synagogue. Both Giffords and Roll were alleged targets of citizen displeasure over their actions relating to illegal immigration. The alleged perp supposedly wrote about government mind control. At this point, we don't know if there is a conspiracy or not, because the U.S. media have become, with each passing year, ever more the mouthpiece of the police, the FBI and the government. We get breathless affirmation of the official story in all its particulars; anything more complex or probing is confined to the "paranoid Internet," where the likes of Jared Lee Loughner skulk and ferment.This writer has seen no evidence of a conspiracy, or that the Cryptocracy secretly shepherded Mr. Loughner, even though Loughner's alleged attack undoubtedly pays dividends to the Cryptocracy: renewed calls for "gun control," a backlash against the campaign for control of illegal immigrants, and reanimation of the saintly aura of canonization of government officials last seen in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.The difference between a competent conspiracy researcher (the minority) and incompetent ones (the vast majority) is that a competent one resists the impulses of his or her own wishful thinking and subjectivity. Because the Tucson tragedy pays rather significant dividends to the Cryptocracy does not signal that the Cryptocracy is behind it. True, it's quite a coincidence that such a concatenation of circumstances (pro-immigration Judaic lawmaker, pro-immigration judge, 9/11 baby, and lone nut), have all come together in Arizona on the 32nd degree line (of north parallel latitude), as if to confirm Black Panther H. Rap Brown's infamous dictum that, "Violence is as American as cherry pie."One may amend Mr. Brown's observation with the addition of the fact that assassination is also quintessentially American, although one would never know it from the lava flow of sanctimony surrounding Saturday's attack on the two Federal officials. Our nation is "horrified and sickened." John McCain opined that the perpetrator is less than human and deserves the contempt of all. Why? Because he assassinated an allegedly good man? Surely the act of assassination itself cannot trouble Senator McCain or any American, since we regularly finance assassination with our tax dollars. Hardly a week goes by in Afghanistan or Pakistan that U.S. forces do not shoot, bomb or burn an alleged Taliban leader, never mind if we gained our intelligence about the leader from one of his business or clan rivals."But that's war," you say. Alright, then, what of our taxpayer-supported "stalwart ally" in the Middle East, "Israel," that has used hundreds of "targeted killings" (none dare call it assassination), to murder Palestinians and Lebanese?"That too is war," you say. Really? When Mossad murdered Ariel Sharon's former collaborator, Elie Hobeika, in Lebanon in 2002, Mr. Hobeika was about to testify against Sharon at a war crime trial in Belgium. When the Israelis assassinated Dr. Thabet Thabet in Palestine, they killed a voice of reason and moderation who possessed a powerful ability to organize the Palestinian people. And don't forget the piéce de résistance, which caused the whole of the America media to chuckle -- in March, 2004 Israeli Prime Minister Sharon ordered that the crippled Sheik Ahmad Yassin be blown out of his wheelchair by missiles fired from a U.S.-supplied Apache helicopter. Oh, there was laughter and mirth in America on that delightful spring day.Most recently we have the case of the two Iranian nuclear scientists bombed on Nov. 29. One died and the other was wounded. The wife of the wounded scientist, Mrs. Fereydoon Abbasi, was also killed. “They’re bad people” said a (U.S.) federal official who assesses scientific intelligence and spoke to the New York Times (Nov. 29, 2010).The terrorist assassination of the Iranian scientists was business-as-usual for the U.S. media and for that matter, for America itself. The attack was reported perfunctorily, with little comment and no expression of sympathy or concern. Within a week it was down the memory hole.In America, if we are honest with ourselves, the fact is, we believe in assassination. It's just that we only want to see the 'bad people' assassinated. The good ones, the Federal judges who rule that illegal aliens should be able to sue Arizona ranchers for defending their property too vigorously, and the Congresswoman who believes that illegal aliens should be allowed to work without "harassment" from the police, should not be assassinated.Of course, once you open Pandora's box and fund and support hundreds of assassinations by U.S. "special forces" in western Asia, and by our Israeli "allies" in Lebanon, Iran and Palestine, then the genie is out of the bottle and the principle that "bad people" can and should be killed, is spread throughout the land. Americans may condemn Jared Lee Loughner's targets, but they cannot fail to vouchsafe his methods.Assassination, in all circumstances, is odious, whether of a Federal judge returning from his weekly Saturday Catholic Mass, or some Afghan goatherd, back from Friday prayers at the masjid. When Ariel Sharon, who ruled the Israeli state thanks to U.S. patronage and tax dollars, rubbed out Elie Hobeika, to silence him, where was the outrage and the investigative reporting? Why didn't Congress cut-off Israeli funds? Loughner's act of wicked assassination in Tucson becomes a justifiable act of targeted killing when the victim is an Iranian or Palestinian 'bad guy.'We should mourn for all the victims and pity a nation so bipolar that it applauds Federally-authorized assassinations while patting itself on the back for the tears and prayers it offers to those on the receiving end of unauthorized ones.